


Out Falls the Past

by eponine119



Category: Lost
Genre: Flash Sideways Verse, Gen, Miles & Sawyer friendship, background Sawyer/Juliet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:53:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26305171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eponine119/pseuds/eponine119
Summary: It's about trust.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	Out Falls the Past

Out Falls the Past  
by eponine119  
July 19-20, 2020

Miles thinks it's weird Jim doesn't date. 

The guy looks like a supermodel, earns a good living, and has a big vocabulary. He's not sure what else girls might want. Miles has a girlfriend, for crying out loud. A very hot girlfriend, thank you very much. Jim doesn't even want to be set up. 

He could accept the guy is just weird, except now he's obviously lying to him about this Palm Springs thing. Miles's suspicions have been triggered, hard. They've been best friends – partners – forever. He doesn't understand why Jim would lie to him. Can't even fathom it. 

...

“It hurts, you know?” Miles says to Naomi over dinner, because she made the mistake of asking him what was wrong. 

“Everybody's got baggage, love,” she says. “Even you.”

He makes a face at her.

“He's probably just gay,” she adds. 

“That's why I told him he could tell me anything,” Miles points out, shaking his head. “I meant it. I don't care, I just want to understand.” 

“Maybe he's thinking about it and he'll tell you later. Whatever it is.” 

“You don't believe he's gay?” 

Naomi wordlessly raises an eyebrow. Meaning no. 

Miles sighs. “Me either.” It's too easy. 

…

Lying in bed that night with his hot girlfriend asleep beside him, Miles thinks about Jim. About the kind of work they do. He's spent a lot of hours sitting the back of a hot, cramped van with headphones on, listening to Jim do his thing. 

A long time ago, he asked Jim if he thought it was immoral to sleep with them. The women who were their targets. “Hell, it's their choice,” Jim said. “They can say no.” 

“So can you,” Miles pointed out. “What puts us above the con men we're trying to catch?” 

Jim's eyes turned dark and his entire face clouded over. “World of difference there, Enos,” he said. 

Anyway, his point is, he's heard Jim fuck women. Lots of them. And everybody has a good time, nobody faking. Miles sighs. 

Not everything's linear, he thinks. It's shades of gray, not absolutes. Maybe he's bisexual. Maybe screwing women on the taxpayer's dime has fucked up his head and made him not want it when the badge is off. Miles just wishes that he knew. 

...

Jim doesn't say anything. Not about Palm Springs, sex, or his date with Charlotte. 

Charlotte didn't call, either. Miles frowns until his head hurts. He decides he needs to know, even if Jim isn't ready to tell him. It doesn't matter. He wants the truth. So with guilt weighing heavily upon him, he pulls Jim's credit card. 

He skims, looking for the telltale signs. Expecting motels, hookup spots, maybe a spa, definitely some gay bars. 

A round trip to Sydney, Australia is absolutely the last thing he expected to see. 

Miles's mind is blown,. He doesn't have any theories. He's pissed and there's only one way to get the truth. 

…

Seeing red, he leads Jim into the privacy of the locker room. Then he slams him into the lockers, yelling at him. He sees confusion in Jim's eyes, but he also sees the lies there. 

Miles really fucking hates liars. Jim knows that, and he knows why. 

At least he doesn't float the Palm Springs story again, maybe because he knows he'd get Miles's fist in his face. Jim doesn't lie to him, and it brings Miles down a notch. 

But he won't tell him the truth, either. Miles wondered what he expected, really. 

So he tells Jim they're done, and heads off to find the chief to make their breakup official. 

…

He doesn't get far, because there's a crash in the locker room. Miles flinches, and when he turns, he sees Jim striding out, holding his bleeding southpaw in the air. 

“What the hell happened?” Miles asks.

Jim glares and growls, and Miles looks past him into the locker room and sees the shattered mirror. 

“So you do care,” Miles says, meeting Jim's narrowed eyes. He takes his partner's hand, sees the cuts and the glass and the blood. “Come on.” 

There's a first aid kit in the locker room bathroom. Miles isn't gentle with the tweezers. 

“I can do it,” Jim says. 

Miles looks at him and doesn't say anything. Yanks out another piece of glass and watches Jim's face. He disinfects and wraps his hand. “I won't say anything,” he promises. 

Jim can't escape fast enough. 

...

“What the hell is wrong with your friend?” It's Charlotte on the phone, and she's pissed. Miles gets up from the dinner table, earning him a glare from Naomi. 

“He stand you up?”

“I wish,” Charlotte said. “He kicked me out of his place at three o'clock in the morning. Do you know how bloody hard it is to get a taxi at that time of night?”

“You went back to his place?”

“Miles,” she says. 

“Fine, what happened after that?” he asks. 

“Nothing! He just flipped out on me and told me to get out.”

As he apologizes, Miles remembers Jim's confused words in the locker room. They hadn't registered at the time. She opened the wrong drawer. What in the hell is his partner hiding?

…

“You haven't exactly been honest with him yourself,” Naomi points out. 

“What?” Miles frowns at her. 

“Did you ever tell him why you transferred out of homicide?”

Miles goes very still. But she's right. He never did tell Jim why he walked away from a job he was kicking ass at – his closure record in homicide was off the charts, for reasons he didn't like to share with anyone. He'd joked that it was killing him, which wasn't too far off, psychologically speaking. Hearing the last thoughts of murder victims all day every day was more than anyone could handle. Jim never asked again. 

“That's different,” Miles says. “He'd think I was crazy.”

“Plenty of evidence to the contrary,” Naomi points out. “And he trusts you.”

It hits home with Miles. Did Jim trust him? His big secret keeping said no. But he did. 

…

He calls Jim, thinking they can talk it out. He can find out what the hell happened with Charlotte and what the heck is going on. Miles runs through the list of neighborhood bars in his head, trying to decide which is best for this conversation, while the phone just rings. 

Jim might be screening, or maybe he sees Miles's number on caller ID and decides not to pick up. Hell, maybe he's not even home. Maybe he's run off on an impromptu trip to South America or something. The possibilities seem endless. Either way, Jim doesn't pick up, and Miles doesn't leave a message. 

He lingers near the phone, thinking maybe Jim will see the caller ID and phone him back. 

He thinks about dialing and trying again. Eventually he gives up.

…

Something keeps Miles out of the chief's office the next day. He doesn't ask for reassignment. He avoids Jim, too, as best he can. He's decided that Jim can come to him. They've been best friends for years – or so he thought, before all this happened. 

And maybe Naomi's right. Maybe it's no different than him not wanting to tell Jim about his own weird abilities. Maybe they've all got secrets. Of course, Miles's secrets don't involve lying or going off on trips to far off places. Or being a weird loner.

Miles thinks about Jim's Laker tickets and wonders if a night out is really what they need. 

…

Jim yells to him as he's leaving the station, and Miles gets into the car. Maybe it's time for the truth. 

The story that Jim tells him makes him feel like he's been punched in the stomach. Miles can't even imagine the hell his partner's lived through. Then he drops his final bomb, that he's actively trying to find this guy so he can commit murder.

Probably justifiable, but still. Miles doesn't like it. They aren't crooked, and they aren't above the law. They all know cops who are like that, but that's not them. 

He's going to have to figure this out, but not right now because a car smashes into theirs and suddenly they're running after a fugitive, together, like it's old times. 

…

That night, his body aching from the car wreck, Miles hits the internet. He feels guilty, even guiltier than when he used department resources to pull Jim's credit card. But Jim had to know he'd do this, and he told him anyway. 

It's like a light inside his chest. Trust. Jim trusted him. 

And here he is, wrecking it on Google. Not that it's easy to find. He has to sift the search results several times, adding bits Jim's told him over time – his hometown, how old he is. 

He finds the article and reads it. It turns his stomach, the details worse than he thought. 

…

Miles can't sleep that night, thinking about what he read and trying to plan what to do next. How to help his partner. 

No wonder the guy's so screwed up, he keeps thinking. Because this is the answer to it all. Why he's the loneliest hot guy in the city. Why he keeps his secrets. And why he didn't trust Miles. 

He knows he can't keep Jim from tracking this guy down. What he has to figure out is how to keep Jim from making the biggest mistake of his life when he finds Cooper. Because if there's anything Miles has learned in his life, it's that violence doesn't resolve more violence. 

…

Miles pushes Jim to go out to lunch with him, or to grab some beers. He just wants to talk. He's decided to tell Jim his own big secret. He figures it can't hurt, and for some reason now he feels ready. Maybe now it's easier to trust him. 

But Jim's too busy and so is Miles. There's the four murders at the restaurant, the Koreans to look after, the fugitive he caught. And Miles has to go to this benefit thing at his dad's museum. He wishes Jim would go with him, but one whiff that Charlotte will be there scares him off. Miles doesn't blame him. 

…

The morning after the benefit, something's changed. “You're different,” Miles says, and it's not just the weight of his secret being lifted. 

Jim smiles. A real one, putting his killer dimples on display. “Met a girl, hoss.” 

“You did,” Miles says, absorbing this. “Not that cutie pie fugitive you were flirting with, I hope.” 

“Nah, strictly small time,” he says dismissively. “This woman... it's like I knew her in another life. Instant connection. Smart, funny, beautiful...”

“What's not to like,” Miles says. 

Jim's eyes go wild for a minute. “It's too much.” 

“Hey,” Miles says. “I know it's terrifying. Go slow. You can do this.” 

“Thanks.” The expression in Jim's eyes says it's real. There's trust between them again. Their partnership is back on. 

…

“I found him,” Jim says, and it's maybe six months later. Everything's been going along fine. Jim's head over heels with Juliet, and Miles still feels relieved. 

Until now, when Miles knows exactly who Jim is talking about, and goosebumps rise on his arms. 

“Come with me,” Jim says. 

Miles almost relaxes, because he knows Jim won't make him an accessory to murder. “Yeah. Of course.”

“Knew you'd get my back.” 

They get in Jim's car and head for Orange County, where Cooper is apparently in a nursing home. It makes sense when Miles does the math. Jim's almost forty. The guy would have to be getting up there.

…

They sit in the car in the parking lot. Jim's not ready to get out yet. “You tell her about all this, man?” Miles asks. It took him ten years to tell his best friend, but Juliet's special. 

“Not all of it,” Jim admits. 

“You still want to take him out?” 

“I just want to talk to him.” 

Miles nods. That's acceptable. He hears the unspoken, that Jim will decide after that conversation. Hardly seems fair to take out a geezer in a nursing home. 

Jim flashes his badge to get them entrance. Making it official. Miles still doesn't relax. 

…

Anthony Cooper, former con man known as Sawyer, is barely alive. He cannot speak or move. He's drooling, and his blue eyes are vacant. Miles cringes. 

“Leave us,” Jim says to the nurse. 

Jim looks at the guy. 

“Waited a long time for this,” he says.

Cooper doesn't blink, doesn't move. Just sits. 

“You killed my parents, Mr. Sawyer,” Jim says and it gives Miles chills. 

Cooper makes a sound. His eyes go wide. After a minute, Miles realizes the guy is gagging. Choking. Jim's face is panicked. “A little help in here!” Miles yells, going into the hall after the nurse. 

It doesn't do any good. Anthony Cooper has choked to death.

…

There's shocked silence in the car on the drive back up the 405. Cooper's dead. Jim got what he wanted. Miles isn't sure if he should comfort him, say it's not his fault. 

“What were his last thoughts?” Jim asks somewhere around Long Beach. 

Miles had shared his secret some time ago. Told him about his ability. He hesitates now. He doesn't want to put more lies between them. He could say that guy didn't have a thought in his head and Jim would easily believe him. 

“You don't need to know that, man,” he says. 

“Tell me.” 

Miles sighs. “He wasn't sorry.” He looks at Jim, who shakes his head. 

“Bastard can rot in hell.” 

“He was already there,” Miles says, and that's the end of it. 

…

Finding Cooper changes Jim, again. Miles thought it might make him free, but he gets quieter and more withdrawn for awhile. “Everything okay with you?” Miles asks. 

Jim just nods, but he doesn't say anything. 

The weeks turn into months. They go out for beers. Watch basketball on the weekends. Solve crimes. The usual. 

Jim's depression lifts. Miles starts to think he might make it. But then cracks start to form again. There's anxiety where there was none before. 

“I can't help if you don't tell me,” Miles reminds him. 

Jim reaches into his pocket. Throws a velvet box down on the desk. Nods to Miles for him to open it. Inside is a tiny, elegant diamond ring. 

“You're doing it,” Miles says. 

“I'm trying,” Jim says, his eyes wild. “It scares the hell out of me.” 

“If it didn't, it wouldn't be right.” 

…

It must be the right thing to say, because Jim does it. He proposes, and Juliet accepts. They set a date for what's going to be a small, casual wedding. 

The dark circles under Jim's eyes deepen. “Let's have it,” Miles says. 

“I'm having nightmares,” Jim confesses. 

“Every guy does.” 

“These are different. I'm not under the bed. I'm dreaming about losing her.” 

“You having doubts, man? It's not too late to call it off.” 

“She dies in my arms every single night. It feels like a memory of some other life.” 

“Weddings are stressful.” Miles is not without sympathy. “It's meant to be.” 

…

The wedding is beautiful. The officiant talks about their love, how this life is a shared space that they've made together with family and friends. 

Miles kisses Juliet on the cheek and shakes Jim's hand vigorously. As Juliet slips away to greet the other guests, Miles teases, “You finally did it.” 

“That I did.” Jim can't stop grinning.

“There were times I really wondered about you, man,” Miles says. “So where's the honeymoon? You going to hit Hawaii?” 

Jim shakes his head. “Not Hawaii.” 

“Why's that? I thought that's where you wanted to go.” 

Jim shrugs. “Says she hates islands.” 

(end)


End file.
